“The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.”

Last update June 13, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned." by Seneca the Younger?
Seneca the Younger photo
Seneca the Younger 225
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BC

Related quotes

Larry Niven photo

“Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.”

The Ringworld Throne (1996)

Diogenes Laërtius photo

“When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to unlearn what you have learned."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Antisthenes, 4.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 6: The Cynics

Antisthenes photo

“All the lessons learned, unlearned”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Fall of a City"
Selected Poems (1941)
Context: All the lessons learned, unlearned;
The young, who learned to read, now blind
Their eyes with an archaic film;
The peasant relapses to a stumbling tune
Following the donkey`s bray;
These only remember to forget. But somewhere some word presses
On the high door of a skull and in some corner
Of an irrefrangible eye
Some old man memory jumps to a child
— Spark from the days of energy.
And the child hoards it like a bitter toy.

Martin Buber photo

“To be old is a glorious thing when one has not unlearned what it means to begin, this old man had perhaps first learned it thoroughly in old age.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian

Source: Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy (1952), p. 6

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“5085. 'Tis harder to unlearn than learn.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Antisthenes photo
Antisthenes photo

“Antisthenes … was asked on one occasion what learning was the most necessary, and he replied, "To unlearn one's bad habits."”

Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher

§ 4
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius

Antisthenes photo

“Being asked what learning is the most necessary, he replied, "How to get rid of having anything to unlearn."”

Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher

§ 7
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius

Related topics